streaming on peacock. i promise, you will not regret it. love, it is very powerful. we all deserve it. on that note, i wish you a very, very good night. from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thanks for staying late, i will see you soon. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> tonight on all in -- >> it is out of -- the basic value system of american people. this is not your father's republican party. >> a supreme court end ti affirmative action in college admissions. >> it is a complete misnomer to suggest this is about color blind when in fact it is about being blind to history. >> tonight, the ruling, the powerful dissent, and how clarence thomas finally won his long battle against affirmative action. >> did you give your degree back again? >> yale does not recognize me. [laughter] >> as the special counsel ramps up on the january 6th

investigation -- >> that is what jack smith is going in for, absolutely, this is it, this is the big show. >> what we are learning today about new subpoenas in the documents case. >> i get everything right and they indicted me. >> -- when all in starts right now. ♪ ♪ ♪ >> good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. today in a landmark ruling that overturns decades of precedent, sweeping aside generations of arguments about racial justice and equality, the supreme court in a 6 to 3 decision, six conservatives to three liberals, effectively got rid of the use of race in college admissions at all, even for the purposes of increasing diversity. in the wake of the decisions,

many colleges and universities immediately sent letters to students and alumni outlining how they are going to operate going forward. one such school was the college of the holy cross in massachusetts, which is notable, because that is the alma mater of justice clarence thomas, whose decades long project to destroy affirmative action culminated in a victory today. thomas did not write the court's majority opinion, that was written by justice roberts. he did write a fiery 58-page piece, denouncing race as a factor in admissions, as policies, and i quote him here, fly in the face about our color blind constitution and our nation's equality ideal. clarence thomas did not always think this way. in the late 1960s, when he was at holy cross, he was one of few dozen black students at that college. as joe anderson writes for slate, quote, he got admitted thanks to his good grades and a recommendation from a nun, and maybe in part because the school was actively looking for

black students. it was in the 1960s, it was in the wake of the watch right. the school hadn't had many black students. and they were looking for some. and once he got to holy cross, thomas politics there were downright radical. >> he definitely was inspired by the black panthers. he dressed like them. he talked like them. he had a beret. he had army fatigues and he had army boots. >> he was afro. he was out there with everyone else. >> after completing his undergraduate degree, thomas was accepted in a number of prestigious law schools including harvard. but he chose to attend yale law because he believed the campus liberal politics is aligned with his own. well, disillusion with his own

status at that elite university. as the times reported back in 1991, thomas was accepted to yale as part of the school's explicit affirmative action plan to admit more students of color. when he resented any suggestion, he received any special consideration because of his race. once he graduated from yale law, thomas blamed his initial ability to find work in the legal profession, not on the fact that many legal institutions, law firms in the 1970s who were still readouts of racism, and white supremacy, and had racist hiring practices, and did not want to hire him. but rather on the belief that his degree had been taken by the application of affirmative action. >> yale law degree, and he had a tencent stamped stuck to it, like a ten cent price tag stuck to it. he was like, this is what it's worth, ten cents, no more. >> you came to blame affirmative action for the rejection he felt. >> now, i know what a law degree from yale was worth, racial preference. i was humiliated. >> eventually, thomas found a job in the office of the conservative missouri attorney general john danforth, who recently told the slogan podcast that he hired thomas in part because of his race. >> my ambition was that the a. g.'s office was to be the best law office in the state. now, did i also think that it was important to have a diverse office? yes, i did.

and i think that it was wonderful to hire clarence thomas for that reason. he has, but the most important reason was i had to get the job done. >> from there, thomas stardom continue to rise and conservative illegal servers, according to his ex girlfriend, arise that was predicated in part on affirmative action. >> in 1982, the white house offered don is a big promotion the chance to run his own federal agency. the trouble was that agency was about equal employment opportunity commission. this was exactly the kind of role glanced almost didn't want, a position focused on race and discrimination -- he didn't want to be there. he was resentful that he had not been offered something that a white person would want. >> thomas was in a bind. he wanted to keep rising in the administration, but he didn't want to rise this way. >> he didn't want anyone to think that he had gotten a job because he was black. of course -- every job he had ever gotten was because it was black. >> now, i want to be absolutely clear here. no one is saying that glanced on this was unqualified for any of those jobs, even his critics, his harshest critics of his jurisprudence will concede, can can see that he is undoubtedly one of the most, if not the most important influential legal minds of his generation. but that mistaken belief that race based consideration, diversity based consideration, and some elusive concept of

true merit, abstracted from that, mutually exclusive, the foundation on which today's supreme court decision was bill. it was that that helped secure thomas legal legacy. he was eventually appointed to the d. c. court of appeals by president george h. w. bush. just two years later, bush nominated him to the supreme court, to replace that retiring justice thurgood marshall, at that point, the only black person to ever sit on the nation's highest courts. >> the president is the best qualified person for the job, and denied that he selected thomas to replace the retiring thurgood marshall because he's black. >> the fact that he is a minority, so much better. that's not a factor, and i would strongly resent any charge that might be forthcoming on quotas when it relates to appointing the best men in the court. >> again, same thing here thomas was both qualified for the position on the court as was probably several dozen folks, maybe more. he was also nominated due to the obvious political motivations in replacing the first black justice, thurgood marshall. during his confirmation hearings, thomas was asked about his own vocal opposition to affirmative action. >> the question is directly in entry to yale, were you part of affirmative action quota? were you part of a racial quota in terms of entering that law school? >> senator, i i'm not doing my adult life, been part of any quota. the effort on the part of yale during my years there was to reach out and open its doors to minorities who felt were qualified. and i took them at their word on that. and i have advocated that very kind of affirmative action. >> just think about that moment for a second, now having seen

some of this man's trajectory to power. they think he hates more than anything, that wounds his pride, is to be viewed as being less than or not qualified, as being in affirmative action case. and yet, at every key juncture in his life, he's asked about it over and over again. and for thomas and the conservative majority in the court, it all boils down to this nebulous concept of merit, of qualified, who is deserving of opportunities and who is not. but i think that misses a point. it is really a question about what kinds of institutions, and what kind of society we want to have. do we want a society where people like clarence thomas, from the small town in georgia, just several generations removed from slavery and jim crow, selected, nurtured, and

encouraged, or once in which they don't go to holy cross, they don't go to a, they don't end up in courts. instead, those schools and institutions pick more sailing team members and legacies. one of the things we saw today, and we saw a lot, it brilliant man who was able to overcome centuries of prejudice, institutionalized prejudice, to come from the most unlikely of backgrounds with the help of a system designed to accomplish just that, turn around and pull the ladder up. joy reid is host of the readout right here on msnbc, a graduate of harvard university, and a defendant in today's ruling, and she joins me now. joy, let me first just get your reaction to the ruling, which i think we all suspected was coming. but given that it is your alma mater, i know you are watching it closely. what is your reaction to what happened? >> i will say, i'm also a very, very proud of justice ketanji brown jackson, who i was privileged to know at harvard university, one of the most

brilliant human beings i ever met. i had a chance to know. in her dissent, i thought it was scathing and perfect. you know, i was not surprised because clarence thomas has been on a mission to dismantle every institutional attempt to help an aide, not just black people, but any people who have been disadvantaged in this society since he's gotten on the court. he, like samuel alito, appears to operate from a kind of rage, a cold rage, against the entire 20th century, the second half of the 20th century, which they found find to be an affront to their own self image, and to their image of america, as this country that is noble, and has always been noble, and whose slave holding founders were noble, and really hated slavery, and we're just so in pain from

the fact that they had to own all these people, and that their wealth was derived from owning this people, but really they were good hearted, and that's what his concurrent discusses. but what i find fascinating is what you put forward, and i'm gonna have to watch that whole front line that you just showed a piece of, because let's just

be clear, clarence thomas was born in pinpoint, georgia. he is from an extraction. he didn't even speak english until he was 17 years old. he spoke -- and he was so afraid to speak in front of white people because he was always told don't speak gucci in front of white people because it will embarrass you. but he almost never spoke at all. there was a white nunn whose largest help them get into school, and get those greats. he has been assisted by a white patron, really, his whole life, even by very rich ones, as they

fly him around the country. and to your very point, he seems to deeply resent all of the assistance he got. and he wants to make sure that nobody like him ever gets that kind of help again because it helps his self image so that he can like to himself and for himself, and maybe hate himself a little less for having gotten help all along his path to the supreme court. and let us be clear, the most important thing to know about his confirmation other than the fact that he is accused equitably of sexual misconduct is the polling that got him

over the line. and it was the polling that i very much remember, i was one of few black folks who was against him, it was the polling that showed that about seven in ten black people supported his ascension to the seat once held by the great thurgood marshall. and he is not his equal. it was black people's support that got wavering members of that judiciary committee -- >> democrats. they needed democratic votes. there was a democratic majority, that's why joe biden in those hearings, they needed the democratic votes. >> and it was only black people support in those polls that got wavering democrats to vote for him. and he has repaid black people with scorn ever since. >> let me ask you a follow-up question about the pathos here, because by the way, the frontline that we played clips of, both about clarence thomas trajectory, i cannot recognize them both highly enough.

they are just ex exclusive pieces of journalism. and the story is fascinating. he's really one of the most interesting figures in american life. i really believe this in terms of that trajectory. i mean, there's a moment of slogan where joy anderson who is the fantastic host and the academically rigor who wrote a great book about this. they are talking about their own experience in elite why dominated institutions, right? that kind of feeling that suspicions, from white folks, affirmative action case. now, in thomas's case, it is a defining anger of his life. but it is also real. and i feel weird as a white person, i don't want to like to say that when thomas experts

wasn't anyway not legitimate. i think he comes quite honestly. but i am curious how you think about it and you think about that, that sort of scolded racism that comes in those institutions and circumstances, and what it means for the broader question of whether we should have a constitution. >> let me just be clear. i got into harvard only because of affirmative action. i went to a school no one had ever heard of in denver, colorado, small suburb. i did not go to exeter or and over. i did not have college test prep. i did not have >> -- good grades and good sats course. but someone came to denver colorado to look for me. it's harder to go to denver, and i met up with her at a village, and in a pre interview to get to pull me into harvard. i was pulled in, and in a school like yale -- i got to affirmatively, and it was literally not saying we are gonna take an unqualified person and put them in harvard. we are gonna take a very qualified person who we would never know existed and put them in harvard. that's how i got there. that's how ketanji got their. that's how justice jackson got there. that's how clarence thomas got there. but the minute i arrived from

my majority black little town, montebello, in denver to harvard, the first week or two that i was in class, my presence was questioned by white people. i was in this big conference class where white students stood up and said, those black students, they are only here because affirmative action. it became a huge argument that we all ended up having. this was freshman year. i never had my academic with entrails question. i never had anyone question whether i was intelligent until i got to harvard. and it was a defining point of my experience there. it was one of the many reasons i was miserable there in my freshman year. you feel completely out of

place and people keep telling you you should not be here. and yet, so many people i went to school with, they were far less smart than me or the other black folks there. they got in because their daddy and they're granddaddy, somebody whose name was on one of the buildings -- you are going to school with people whose names are on the buildings, who are third and fourth generation legacies, whose parents pumped money into harvard to get them in. but that affirmative action is okay with this majority. they said that the people who benefited from slavery, they are so far ahead of black folks in terms of opportunity, and will never catch up to them, no matter how many of those we get. those people's affirmative action is okay because those people can pay for fancy trips. but in yale, people who want to get in just because of your brain, but you are not from a legacy, too bad, you can't come in. >> we are out of time. but i would commit people to read the jfk admissions essay, which is a truly hilarious document, in which have cases

why almost went to harvard. the reason i went to harvard or several, i feel harvard could give me a better background, a better liberal education than any other university. the point being, though, this is a school for the elite, for a very long time. joy reid, thank you so much. i know i kept you along tonight by truly generally appreciate your comments on this. fantastic. >> thank you, my friend, goodnight. >> coming up -- deeming race irr law life. justice ketanji brown jackson rips in today's supreme court decision in that dissent that joy just mentioned. the far-reaching implications of it, and we will read from it, next. don't go anywhere. inside of you. 50 years or older? ask your doctor about shingles. >> there were two dissents into

a supreme court ruling, one from justice sonia sotomayor, and one from the newest justice ketanji brown jackson. justice jackson is the third black supreme court justice in our nation's long history, the first black woman on the high court. today, she wrote the rare dissent that i think will be quoted for years to come. she writes, quote, with let them eat cake obliviousness today, the majority pulls the record and announces color blindness by all caveats, but deeming waste irrelevant in law does not make it so in life. no one benefits from ignorance, although formal race linked legal barriers are gone, race still matters to the lived experiences of all americans in numerous ways, and today's ruling makes things better, things worse, not better. justice jackson continues, quote, the best that can be said on the majority's perspective is that it proceeds ostrich like from the hope that preventing consideration of race will end racism. it will take longer for racism to leave us, and ultimately, ignoring grace just makes it matter more. justice jackson's argument does not carry the day today, in a 6 to 3 court. but i have to say, in the first year on the court, particularly, just bought a new vigor energy to the major questions of civil rights, race, and the constitution, particularly as conceived of in the crucial second pounding of this country, in the 14th and 15th amendments during reconstruction. as we have seen from conservatives, like justice thomas, this scent can become a majority overtime. and justice jackson is charting a path for the court to fall

over the decades to come if we are lucky. michele goodwin is a professor at university of california irvine law school. jamelle bouie is a columnist for the new york times. and both join me now. michele, i don't think the majority's decision today either the makeup of the majority or the substance of it was particularly surprising. but i saw a lot of people reacting very strongly to, in particular, justin jackson's dissent. i wonder what you thought of it. >> well, she is able to provide a counter to what has been the defining black voice on the supreme court since justice thomas was appointed and confirmed to the court. and when she is brought, it's a perspective about reality. what is happening on the ground in terms of law and the realities of people in our country, we know that the supreme court itself, many americans say it is out of touch with the average american. but justice thomas's jurisprudence is are also deeply out of touch with the average american experience, including the average black americans experience. and justice ketanji brown jackson was able to speak to that. you know, there is a way in which the court has suggested that it is leading to originalism and textualism.

and by what she's been able to do in this court is to be able to show and expose that the court's originalism is really opportunistic. it is quiet selective. when the court says that it is looking at texts from the 13th, 14th amendment, it is looking at it with a very narrow view. and she's called them out, including by exposing, which we all know, that the reconstruction amendments were a direct response to american slavery and dismantling that system, which was a race based system in the united states that discriminated against enslaved black people. >> this is the thing that i found so thrilling, honestly, about ketanji brown jackson's time in the court so far, which is the project of a kind of reconstruction era, originalism, around those foundational amendments, 13th, 14th, 15th amendments, where she says, hey, you want to talk about the founders? you want to talk about the amendments? let's talk about the reconstruction amendments, who wrote them, and why, and what they were trying to do. and the notion that those amendments were colour-blind, it is farcical on its face. jamal, you wrote this today, and i thought it was really insightful on this. he says, as expected, the court

has averted the 14th amendment, an amendment written explicitly to directly ameliorate the conditions of race hierarchy, which comes into conservative hands, and an amendment that says it's illegal to try to directly ameliorate the conditions of race hierarchy. say more about that. >> right, the 14th amendment was verified in 1860. it's written to bolster the civil rights movement and 66, but a little obscure to americans, the first civil rights act. it is written directly to say that black americans still exist under conditions of servitude. so, we need to do something about that. president andrew johnson vetoes it, and they force him to respond to the veto basically, to say that we are gonna be constitutional underpinning to the project we are trying to ameliorate the conditions of slavery, the conditions of servitude, which is the language used, and i think that should be our frame for understanding the 14th amendment, and the 15th. and as michele said, slavery in the united states is a race based system. and the people who rode wrote this amendments are not blind, they're not race blind. this is what they talked about. this is part of the activism that they did before the war in terms of challenging slavery, recognizing that system. so they wrote these amendments to give the federal government the direct authority to deal with that, and in doing so,

giving the federal government this vastly expanded authority prior to having before the war, they also fundamentally changed the relationship of the federal government to states and the citizens to the federal government. they really created a kind of national citizenship. so, what i also found about justice jackson is taking that moment as the fundamental reconstruction of the constitution that it was, and taking it seriously for what it says about federal power, and what it says about what the government can do to deal with racism. >> michele, one of the strange aspects of the majority's decision today and indeed of

the courts jurisprudence on the question of affirmative action through a variety of cases is the sense, sometimes pointed to, and sometimes explicit, there is like a constitutional countdown clock. this is a notion that robert sort of advances in the shelby county decision, which is like, well, i don't know, it's been a good run. i think we've got this squared away. i think this is fine. and that shows up again here. like, we can't keep doing this forever. i don't know, where is that even coming from? [laughter] >> well, it's made up. we saw a version of it in the dobbs decision where for the first time, the supreme court takes away right that it had established, which provided a fundamental equality for women over their own reproductive health and autonomy. and we see the continuation of that in these affirmative action cases, this kind of false clock, this false clock narrative, as you say, which doesn't imagine any way that history and the length of time of american colonialism, american slavery, the kind of jim crow reality that was in the united states. and let me just mention a name, pauly murray, she wrote a book which was called race laws in america. it's about 800 pages single

spaced of the jim crow laws that forced black people to second class citizenship. and the only way that that was dismantled was, again, by federal intervention, not by those very states. so, the idea that somehow, we are colour-blind. the idea that we have some time until it goes away, it's ridiculous. let me just say this, 1865, the 13th amendment was ratified, and mississippi only gets to it in 2013. >> since we are recommending things in the pauly murray documentary, fantastic, i would highly recommend it. finally for you, it struck me

today that the first big challenge against the court and this is bucky on affirmative action. looking at that decision, the court does uphold affirmative action that bears backwards allowed, explicit racial quotas. so it was 1978, the u.s. at that point was like 12 years into its very new history as a multi racial democracy. and you already have people on the court being like, okay, that's enough. >> yes, that's typical. in 1866, and the veto, massachusetts civil rights act, johnson says, it's been too long. you can't give this help to black americans.

we can't extend it for this long. in 1883, civil rights cases, the court and its majority opinion says how long is the negro head corner be special in the laws. so, this is a typical rhetorical strategy to say everything is taking too long and we have to have an answer now. >> michele goodwin and jamelle bouie, thank you both for joining us tonight. appreciate it. >> thank you. >> still ahead -- new reporting suggests the special counsel documents investigation is still growing, even post indictment. jack smith may have a big new cooperative witness in the january 6th investigation. we will cover it all, next. ♪ ♪ ♪

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strengthening democracies at home and abroad, do other democratic leaders want to know why the footsoldiers of the insurrection have been charged and prosecuted but not the leader? >> the answer is, yes, but here is my answer. i have faith the justice department will move in the direction that is consistent with the law. it may take time, but i have faith that they are going to do right. but i have not spoken about that, and i don't think i should. >> president biden on msnbc, right here at this desk with nicole wallace today where he reiterated his position on the independents crucially of the

department of justice. that might not answer questions about whether doj could move faster in investigating trump's attempt, at least from the top down. it is clear the special clown counsel's probe is in full swing right now. in the special counsel's other case, where he is already indicted the president on 37 felony counts for illegally retaining government documents we learned today that the grand jury is continuing its investigation and has issued new subpoenas connected to the inquiry. that's according to the new york times. we don't know, but it could potentially lead to new charges, either against the ex president -- already indicted or against others. nick ackerman serves as special watergate prosecutor, also assistant attorney in the district of new york. i was confused by this news. we've got the investigation, we got a grand jury, you've got the indictment. it's a big deal. united the ex president. what do you make of them still investigating, still issuing -- ? >> let's be clear about one thing. you can't use a federal grand jury to prepare for trial.

you can't used to go out and beat the bushes to get more evidence for what you already charged. in fact, if you try to do that, the defense lawyers would take you before the presiding judge and you would be in big trouble. >> a great point. i hadn't thought of that. >> it's not like your investigatory investigatory tool to prepare for trial. >> no. it's the mayor for other indictments, four other charges. this clearly means they are either looking at other individuals who may be targets of this grand jury, or they have other charges that they are looking into, or they are

trying to figure out what is the scope of the damage that was done by the classified information that was taken, and who was involved in that. so there is a whole host of things that could be going on that none of us are going to know anything about until such time and if charges, additional charges are brought. >> the other news on that is this woman named susie wildes, a campaign aide down in florida. an interesting backstory, we can get into that tomorrow or later. she was allegedly shown, she has now been named in reporting

in the indictment there are two places where he brandishes the information. there is the mack that he shows a -- person. this reporting comes from cnn. he was allegedly sown a classified map by the president. she was during a meeting at the new jersey golf club. she is effectively running trump's 2024 campaign as she has met with jack smith's office. >> i would think she would be put in the grand jury and was probably put in the air before they brought the indictment. >> you mean she probably told the grand jury about that and then she was up for the indictment? >> oh, sure. every person who was present for that meeting, you would put them into the grand jury. one, you want to know if there is something exculpatory that you want to be able to meet at trial.

and you want to know what each of these people say, because they could be called as witnesses. >> you want to lock in their testimony, as well. >> that's the whole point. >> okay, so now let's turn to the latest breaking thing, which is on the other prong of jack smith's investigation. a few days ago they got mike roman. am i right about that mike roman? he was a state director who was a political campaign guy for 2024. he was fairly key in the january six committee case. in the committee transcript of that deposition, which you can get online, he basically pleads the fifth. did you talk to fake electors? fifth. did trump win the election? fifth, fifth, fifth. he is now cooperating with prosecutors from special counsel jack smith's team in the ongoing criminal probe. that's according to two sources talking to zachary cohen. what do you think?

>> it's totally plausible. it's so different to be dealing with the department of justice and dealing with a congressional committee. the congressional committee cannot bring charges. they cannot charge you with a crime. the department of justice, even though both have immunity power, the department of justice is the one that decides how that is used, for the most part. and the committee here, unlike in the watergate investigation, this committee has really held back. the january sixth committee never used its immunity powers. it really deferred to the department of justice, which is a smart move because -- >> iran contra -- >> yes, exactly, that was a huge problem. he had problems too with people being granted immunity. that's exactly right. so they have either worked out a deal with him because he's pleading guilty to something,

or their lawyers convince them that with these fake electors, there are two levels of people. there are people who really know what the whole plot was. that was the plot to get mike pence basically to send the votes back to the state legislatures in the battleground states. and some of these people they truthfully might not have known what this was about because they were so far down in the food chain. so we don't really know where this person was in the entire line of command here, but certainly he had had times, -- -- corroborating. it doesn't seem like a great set of developments with the trump people regarding this january's investigation. nick akerman, great conversation.

>> the investigation to the january 6th insurrection is the largest case in the history of the department of justice. the man overseeing that investigation, attorney general merrick garland, made his name nearly 30 years ago, prosecuting timothy mcvay for bombing the oklahoma city federal building in 1995. the story of mcvay and his motivations gets a remarkable post insurrection treatment in a new book by jeffrey toobin

called homegrown: timothy mcveigh and the rise of right-wing extremism. i got a chance to sit down with jeffrey toobin for the latest episode of my podcast, why is this happening, and we discussed how extremist ideas have migrated towards the center of the republican party politics, especially if fetishization of guns. >> it is explicitly a tool of violent insurrection, a murder against the -- and that used to be like a timothy mcvay soldier or fortune ideology that is really migrating into the halls of congress, to the point now where you hear elected republican leaders essentially articulating that as the reason -- >> lindsey graham has said that explicitly that he has a gun to protect himself against the government. ted cruz has said that. and, you know, this is, you know, this is, not to date myself, but i am old enough to remember when the second amendment was not even interpreted by the supreme court. it was only 2008 in the heller decision when the supreme court said there was any individual right in the second amendment at all, for most of the history of this country, overwhelmingly, the second amendment was interpreted as something solely about the power of militias, having nothing to do with individual right to keeping bear arms. but not only as you were just pointing out has it become gospel on the right that, you know, you have the right to have a weapon in your home to protect yourself against criminals who may come in and try to steal things or attack you. now, it's become a -- a vehicle for protecting yourself against the government.

it's never quite spelled out how that would work. but it just shows how this has all ratcheted up in recent years. >> i found it a fascinating conversation. you can listen to that episode right now. just scan the qr could on your screen, or head to ever get your podcasts, and search why is this happening?

we moved out of the city so our little sophie could appreciate nature. but then he got us t-mobile home internet. i was just trying to improve our signal, so some of the trees had to go. i might've taken it a step too far. (chainsaw revs) (tree crashes) (chainsaw continues) (daughter screams) let's pretend for a second that you didn't let down your entire family. what would that reality look like? well i guess i would've gotten us xfinity... and we'd have a better view. do you need mulch? >> with a supreme court ruling what, we have a ton of mulch.

against half a century of precedent around affirmative action in college admissions, there are now calls from both sides of the aisle to do away with legacy admissions. last year, new york democratic congressman jamaal bowman introduced a very assistant bill in the house called the fair college admissions for students act, which would

prohibit, quote, preferential treatment in the admission process to applicants on the basis of their relationships to donors or alumni. congressman jamaal bowman serves on the committee on education and labor, and works as a middle school principal in bronx, new york. happy to have you here. >> good to be here, thanks for having me here. >> it's interesting. i saw this, there's a jeff merkley in the senate, who has similar legislation, and i saw today tim scott of south carolina, a republican, and also presidential candidate, calling for the same thing. >> okay -- >> i thought it was kind of interesting. first of all, what's your reaction to the court's decision today? >> devastation, frustration, another gut punch to progress. it just seems throughout my life, throughout history, being a black in america, you are under attack for being black in america. and the decision today to disenfranchise our capacity to use the 14th amendment, in a decision, is insane! like the 14th amendment is designed to protect and enfranchise african americans who now use it to reverse our enfranchisement to now education. it is just preposterous and disgusting, obviously. >> let me ask you this -- there's different critiques and people have all sorts of views on affirmative action, and i think there's interesting complicated nuances to some discussions. for instance, one thing say, people on the left, all those

fancy college stuff is kind of a little bit of a right hearing. it's a small group of people. there's only 70 colleges in all of america that admit less than one third of their applicants. and i am curious, for you are someone who is a middle school principal in the bronx, right? you are dealing with kids who by and large are not like racing to get to harvard, right? how you think this sort of question of elite institutions hits the folks you are present in the bronx and the schools -- >> it is about access. it is about opportunity. it is about hope, and it's about self determination. so, there are many families that i have worked with who don't even think college is an option for children beginning as young as second or third grade. and that -- >> that is one of the bigger obstacles -- >> correct. by elementary school, they are like, oh, mike it isn't going to college, let alone harvard. so, having something like affirmative action in place provides a pathway for students who are ready to work their butts off, or who are super nerdy like joy reid mention she was, to get into a place like harvard. and with affirmative action, places like harvard look to other places, look to diverse backgrounds who bring in students because it enriches the overall education experience. and the decision today, and the

phrase color blindness, are you kidding me? we are thinking about color blindness when it came to the homestead act, or the black laws, or jim crow, or any of the things throughout our history that did not benefit us, that actually harm us and even killed us, versus affirmative action for wealthy white patriarchs, which is why ending legacy admissions, which benefit 70% of white people, and 70% of those who benefit our white, and they keep out low income, mostly children of color. if we are serious about our democracy and equity and equality and legacy admissions, we can do that in congress. >> that would not be a constitutional, particularly with this this course. but it could be in congress, and i think there's something interesting here from a bipartisan standpoint, which is, conservatives are really wound up about these elite institutions for a bunch of different institutions -- >> and elitism. >> and elitism than i think progressives are. but scott made me think, i wonder if you can find people on the other side, why should we have legacy admissions? >> scott sounds he is being reasonable. right now, republicans in the house are anything but reasonable.

they do not want to collaborate on any piece of legislation. you see how they've been governing since they've taken power. i want to mention this. elections matter. like, donald trump chose three supreme court justices. and i still hear people saying democracy is a sham. elections don't matter. your vote doesn't matter. if we don't get out in droves next year and vote the right people into office, we are gonna see more and more of this. and it's not just one election and one vote, the far-right has been strategically organizing to take control of the supreme court, and take control of state houses across the country. that's why they have this

power. we have to do the same thing on the left. and everyone who cares about our democracy and humanity, we gotta organize the same way. and we got engaged to disengage, to make sure they vote in every election. >> yes, it's a really good point. today really was that 2016 -- that election, 80,000 votes across three states, a popular vote lost, but that's what we're, sealed the fate, and affirmative action today. congressman jamaal bowman, who represents a district in my home borough of lebron's, as well as tennessee. good to see you. >> that is all in on thursday night.

alex wagner tonight starts right now. good evening, alex. >> well, cat's out of the bag. >> thank you for the book plug as well. thank you for joining us this hour. the year was 1990. republican incumbent nor